When I was a kid I remember being really critical of my Mother's baked goods. Things like bread and cake always tasted better from the store. I feel differently now. I don't want all those extra (unhealthy) ingredients in my or my child's body.
There are a few store bought bad-for-you foods I will never forget. I loved Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup. But being gluten free, MSG free, and an advocate for humanely raising animals, I will never be able to eat it again.
Not that my own homemade broth isn't better than store bought, it's just sometimes I long for that long remembered favorite food from my youth. But, I have never been able to achieve the flavor, consistency, or that sticky clear film that occurs on the top of the Campbell's broth. Well, now I know why.
It's Chicken backs. Just the cut out spines from "pieced" chicken. Since we clean chickens I happened to have a freezer bag of 15 or so chicken backs.
I dry roasted, reserved the fat for future cooking. Then I removed the kidneys and put in a stock pot with lots of water a couple of teaspoons of salt and tablespoons of white vinegar and boiled for hours and hours.
When it had boiled down to about 5 quarts of stock I removed the bones and noticed the meat. The oysters on the back had been left. My favorite part. I popped them out and ate them with the broth. Those chewy squares of chicken in Campbell's: chicken oysters. I added some bang pho (rice based) noodles and voila, my own version of chicken noodle soup. No MSG, no gluten, and humanely raised.
And just as good as store bought.
